The best team to come up and develop a prototype of a solution to the Riigi Kinnisvara (State Real Estate) challenge of BIM tool for property management, can win up to 3000€. 

Get acquainted with the challenge description below and submit your idea! 

You can apply as a team or an individual (and gather a team around your idea in the team formation phase, starting on Sept 12th). 

It is difficult to imagine contemporary design and building process without a BIM model. BIM models have found certain application in building design and construction stage. Alas, the same cannot be said about property management, where breakthrough has not yet been reached and major potential remains unused. Main reason for that consists in the lack of simple tools with BIM capability that could be used for property maintenance. BIM models contain lots of valuable information, but after finalising the “as-built” model, the models are actually no longer used – valuable information is virtually dumped in the bin after the building is completed. Companies engaged in property management, upkeep providers and property owners turn back to 2D materials and spend hours to find necessary information from folders the size of which reaches several GB. When finding the information, there is a great danger that it might no longer be up to date or that it is in the format that requires reprocessing. Considering that the expenditure on property upkeep during the lifespan of the building is one order of magnitude higher than on design and construction, it is crucial to bring the savings and efficiency arising from the models to the building management phase.

Situation on management software market:

Many versions of management software with BIM capability are overly massive, complex, employ only one specific logic (which might not be suitable for all property owners), cannot be adapted to the conditions prevalent in Estonia and do not fully support import of BIM models in open BIM standard IFC format. Therefore, there has been no implementation of management software with BIM capability and management efficiency arising from the models has remained unlocked.

In order to change that situation, it is necessary to introduce property management application based on BIM model. The purpose of the application should consist in using “as-built” models and drawings as a basis for providing tools that would simplify daily work of people operating in the field of property management. As the information about the rooms, equipment, systems, finishing and other assets of a building exist in BIM “as-built” model, it would be reasonable to transfer them to property management application.

Other property owners and managers in Estonia and Europe face similar problems and needs. Thus, choosing the tool could be an important key to digitalisation of property maintenance on a wider scale, i.e. “Tiger Leap” in the given sector.

Explanation: The purpose of the function would consist in linking the content of BIM model or building elements or component systems with EVS 807 standard “Management and maintenance of facilities”. Linking should allow filtering elements related to a particular code and work (e.g. 245 Air conditioning TH) and their data. The result must allow export in output format. The same classification is used both by the biggest Estonian real estate company RKAS and other property owners and managers across Estonia for recording their services and jobs. This functionality should support preparation of technical descriptions of utility maintenance and upkeep, which must be adhered to in order to ensure technical maintenance and upkeep.

Explanation: The purpose of the function would consist in linking work orders with BIM model elements so that the contractor (person providing maintenance service) would find the building element linked to work order from BIM model (location in the building), observe the environment surrounding that element in 3D environment and request information regarding element data (incl. information on “as-built” model and previous work orders). Using of this function should lead to shorter duration of active work orders and more efficient workflows.

In general, the application should be able to read “as-built” model in IFC format and allow its improvement and integration with additional information generated in management process. User interface should support the needs of the real estate manager, be easy to use and allow modification.

• Visualisation of building elements based on selected parameters

• On-site identification of an element by using the model (e.g. near field communication (NFC)

• Digital maintenance log module. Log of past events and notifications and visualisation of future maintenance

• Integration with other applications (records environment, invoices, geoportal, procurements, building automation, etc.)

The implementation of integrated property management application should result in improved work efficiency (information is found faster and in required format), reduced expenditure on upkeep of the building and extended useful life of equipment (more quality information that can be used as a basis for making decisions), fewer equipment malfunctions (better maintenance) and thus, increased customer satisfaction.